Murray was to lead the
soldiers and I the horsemen. I said to Otherday and my interpreter: "How
are we to know the guilty parties?" The answer was: "Whoever runs from
the camp you may be sure of."

The scene presented when we reached the high land was beautiful,
inspiring, and frightfully alarming. As far as the eye could reach there
was an unbroken camp of savages, not less than eight or ten thousand of
them, representing all the Indians of my upper bands, and those from the
Missouri who always visited us at payment time. I knew many of them were
relatives of Ink-pa-du-ta and his people, and most of them his friends,
but there was no time for balancing chances, and, at the word, away we
went for the enemy's camp, which was the farthest up the river of them
all. The night had been very hot, and, as is the custom, the tepees had
been rolled up at the bottom, to allow a free circulation of air, which,
of course, allowed the inmates an open view of the prairie. When my
squad got within about two or three hundred yards of the lodges a young
Indian, holding the hand of a squaw and carrying a double-barrelled
shotgun, sprang out, and made for the river bluff as fast as his legs
would carry him. All the soldiers fired at him, but he did not seem to
be hit, and disappeared among the chaparral in the bottom. We surrounded
him. He fired four shots, and each time I looked to see a man fall, but
only one shot was effective, and that struck the cartridge box of a
young soldier, turning it completely inside out, but without injuring
the wearer. Whenever he shot, we poured a volley into the place
indicated by the smoke, and succeeded in killing him. We took his squaw
and put her into one of the wagons, more for the purpose of identifying
the man than anything else, and started down the river towards the
agency. We had to pass through the heart of all these camps, and the
squaw yelled as only a scared squaw can. The savages swarmed about our
party by the hundreds and thousands, threatening vengeance, and
flourishing their guns in a blood-curdling manner. A shot from one of
them, or from one of us, would have sent us all into heaven in less than
a moment. The shot was not fired, and we succeeded in reaching the
agency in safety. I have always attributed our escape to the moral force
of the government that was behind us.

At the agency there were great log buildings, in which we fortified
ourselves. I sent a courier to Fort Ridgely for